Caged Birds
by surestsmile
Summary: [Pre CoM] Life is never easy when you realised you've grown up and there is nothing you can remember save your name. [Organisation centric]
1. Relieving Ennui

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. Square-Enix owns them. I'm merely borrowing them for my own enjoyment and will put them back.

Relieving Ennui

Deep breathing and the occasional grunt fill the room, but overall it is a prevalent silence. He doesn't really mind it, preferring the quietness to Larxene's endless chatter or Vexen's earnest theories.

Lexaeus does not claim to know where he is; he knows that his world is just made up of endless hallways and doors, with no windows and no sky. How he knows of these are through the books he finds in the rooms, but unlike Vexen he sees no purpose in indulging the mind with useless information, and after learning all he needed, he has never set foot in those rooms again unless it was necessary.

He takes to task his body, remembering the weapon the Superior presented him with, a huge heavy object "capable of wielding terrible damage with grace, if you only know how to control it", and works out, day after day after day, honing the muscles that will carry out his duty.

However, there're only so many weights he could lift before boredom sets in. Besides, sweat makes his palms slippery and drips into his eyes (he often wonders why he even has eyebrows, for he finds them totally useless in every aspect), and very soon he sets the weight down slowly, relaxing the tension in his arms and his back.

A white towel is thrown over his head, but he moves his hand slowly up, careful not to aggravate over-stretched muscles. He turns, and is mildly surprised to see Zexion standing there, impassiveness written all over his face.

"How long have you been there?" he asks, breaking the silence. It unnerves him a bit to know that of all the companions he has met so far, Zexion is the only one who never betrays his presence unless he wanted to.

"Long enough."

"I see."

He manages to towel himself moderately dry by the time Zexion speaks again.

"Why are you doing this?"

He gestures to the weights, and Lexaeus shrugs. "Because I can. Because it's what I do."

Zexion's lips are interesting, he realizes, because they twist and lift and shift, perceptibly, but they show more than what his lilac eyes will ever show. But Lexaeus personally thinks that Zexion's eyes are better at seeing into his mind, simply because they're more colourful than the rest of his pale countenance.

"What are you doing here?" he asks again.

"I was...bored. Marluxia's ideas of grandeur were getting to me."

"Bored enough to watch me work out?"

The lips lift a little, just a bit at the corners. "Maybe."

"Axel would make a better companion than I would." His words are flippant, but true. Lexaeus acknowledges the redhead's intelligence in those mad-bright green eyes, and finds that perhaps Axel would have made a better fit for his lilac-eyed comrade. At the corner of his vision he sees those eyes flicker.

"I don't trust him."

The new silence stretches between them, thick and heavy. Trust. Without memories of who they have been, who they are, and to hold only a name...it was difficult to trust anyone here. In this place without an endless sky.

"I wouldn't trust any of us," he says truthfully.

Zexion's response is quicker than he expects, "I -", but as Lexaeus looks fully into Zexion's face, the other man stops speaking abruptly and turns away. The lilac eyes flicker again, almost restlessly, and this time, even those pale lips move in still-born speech.

"You were saying?"

"It's nothing." Zexion's voice is hard, and his expression twists slightly. This is the first time Lexaeus has seen any negative change register on Zexion's features (he had enjoyed the wide-eyed gaze while it lasted), and it piques his interest. Still, he doesn't want to get on Zexion's bad side.

"I apologise if I had spoken out of line."

He watches as Zexion opens his mouth to speak again, but the door suddenly opens, and Axel pokes his head in. Whatever the lilac-haired man had wanted to say vanishes.

"Superior's calling us. Let's go."

The familiar smirk spreads on Axel's thin lips as he sees the both of them, and Zexion pushes Axel firmly away as he stalks out. One thin, red eyebrow raises itself at him, at which he looks away from those brilliant green eyes.

"What happened, Lex?"

He tosses the towel to one side, and starts to put on a shirt. "It's nothing. None of your business, Axel."

"Oh?"

The redhead's sharp, knowing laughter rings in his ears, but he can only remember the look in the lilac gaze, quickly turning into gray.

-owari-

Feedback is appreciated. Thank you.


	2. Twenty Questions

Disclaimer: I do not own Larxene or Lexaeus. Square-Enix owns them.

Twenty Questions

"Lexaeus?"

He's heard enough of Larxene such that her loud entrances don't faze him anymore. He remembers her as the only female of the group, as well as one of the loudest. Usually, he tunes her out, but this time, her words and her voice seem different, and since the book he's reading (_Great Expectations_, by Charles Dickens) is in his opinion a little dry, he puts it down in favour of listening to a muted Larxene for once.

"What is it?"

She isn't smiling or hyper for the first time he's seen her, and it feels strange. "You won't kill me if I ask you this, right? I didn't want to ask Zexion."

"Not unless it gives me reason to." He assures her. Somewhere he reads that people smile to reassure others, but there really isn't any reason to smile in here. Unless you are Axel, who somehow manages to find a strange, twisted humour in nearly everything.

There are really very few things that ruffle him, and the only person who has gotten under his skin so far was Axel. The redhead reminded him of a mix of the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat from Carroll's _Through the Looking Glass_ (he must confess boredom drives him to books nowadays) and that combination itself makes Lexaeus wary. He isn't certain what he is to say around the man, or if he should say anything at all.

She scowls at him, "That's hardly reassuring," and still stays a considerable distance away despite his words, However, a thoughtful expression takes over her face before she says, "Zexion likes you, doesn't he?"

That question startles him. Although he has expressed interest in Zexion when he first met, it was merely because Zexion was the first person he had seen, akin to the duckling effect: where a duckling imprints on the very first thing it sees when it's born and assumes it to be its mother. Even though much later Zexion occasionally just sits with him and doesn't say anything, he doesn't think much of it, although he enjoys what little conversation they had.

"Why would you say that?" he manages to reply calmly, and he congratulates himself silently for not stammering or stuttering or doing something equally betraying. Larxene visibly relaxes, and she walks closer to him, still uncharacteristically quiet.

"Axel said that he caught the both of you...talking to each other. Zexion never talks to anyone here. And he said you made Zexion uncomfortable, but Zexion didn't try to kill you for it."

"And that means he likes me?" He raises one eyebrow to look at her. She surprises him, sometimes, being the noisiest member of their relatively tiny group, with her firecracker personality and brash talk. But this is a first, actually trying to observe them.

"No," and now she looks almost upset for bringing it up in the first place. "That's not what I meant."

"Then what do you mean?"

"I meant...that you're friends right? With each other?"

"I suppose so. You didn't have to word it _that_ way." He looks at her, a frown marring his face. She must be up to her antics again. "What else do you want, Larxene?"

A hurt expression flashes across her face, for a moment. But her next words surprise him.

"Do you think Axel likes me?" Her words were said in a rush, and she doesn't try to look at him. "Axel sometimes talks to me, you know, like how you talk to Zexion or how he talks to you, but the things he says are over my head, and it sometimes sounds like he's talking about things I don't understand. And when I try to talk to him he just looks at me and doesn't say anything but smiles. Do you... think he likes me?"

He stares at her, struggling to understand. When he does not say anything (or at least, he's trying to say something but he doesn't know what) she looks up at him with a familiar angry expression.

"Come on, Lexaeus. For all your monosyllabic replies and chat, you have a brain up there. I know you're not as stupid as you look." Her voice lowers. "Zexion wouldn't have liked you if you were otherwise."

"And how did you come to that conclusion, Larxene?" His voice is laced with steel as he gathers himself together, and he finds the familiar irritation coming back at her behavior.

She doesn't answer his question.

"How come you get to have Zexion, huh, Lexaeus? It's not my fault that I'm the only girl here, not my fault that I can't get someone to like me. You don't like me, Zexion doesn't like me, Vexen _hates_ me and I hate him too, I don't know what Marluxia's thinking half the time and Axel...Axel..." She fists her hands. "Actually, I don't even think Axel _sees_ me."

"Larxene, there is nothing between Zexion and-"

She whirls on him. "You're really thick, you know. Maybe I was wrong, or maybe Zexion sees something in you I can't, but he talks to you! And you talk to him! Without him ignoring you! He sits next to you voluntarily and doesn't move! Nobody wants to talk to me, or hear me talk, or do anything with me!"

"Larxene." Something in his voice must have stopped her tirade, and she looks at him with tired blue eyes. And he sees the difference between her and the rest of them.

"All I want is for someone to talk to me." She says. "To notice me. All I want is a _friend_. Is that too much to ask?"

He remembers Axel's wild laughter and Zexion's gray gaze and Larxene's hurt expression. And he thinks about the wants and the desires and friendships and love in those books, all out of their reach because they _are_ out of reach.

"Nevermind," Larxene suddenly snaps out loud. "Forget I said anything at all." She begins to turn, cloak flying around her in a sudden déjà vu.

And he sees Zexion, and he thinks about Zexion and his stillborn words.

_I _trust_ you._

"Yes," he answers her, and she stops mid-turn. "Sometimes, it is too much to ask."

owari-

Feedback is always appreciated.


	3. Clouds

Disclaimer: I do not own Lexaeus or Zexion or the _Wizard of OZ_. Just borrowing, will put 'em back all nice and normal.

Clouds

"I read a book today," Zexion says, sitting at the edge of the bed. Lexaeus looks at him with curiosity, but says nothing. It is rare that Zexion shares whatever things he does in this place, much less initiate a conversation that has seemingly no purpose, and Lexaeus doesn't want to spoil the opportunity. Especially since Zexion is a man that keeps largely to himself.

But everyone does that here.

"It's a story called _The Wizard of Oz_ by L. Frank Baum."

"What's it about?" he asks quietly. Zexion doesn't look at him, staring down at gloved hands that flex automatically. The man's quietness unnerves him, he has never seen Zexion so troubled before.

"It's...it's about this man, this man who was an all-powerful ruler of this country." Zexion voice is devoid of inflexion, but his hands jerk and fist. "But he was just a fraud, a fraud who pushes buttons and pulls levers on this giant machine. Whenever he does one of his tricks, steam comes out, and the entire country is made afraid. Of steams and levers."

He doesn't see what Zexion is heading towards, but he moves closer anyway. The lilac-haired man doesn't notice his proximity, and it sets off warning bells. He knows Zexion avoids close contact as much as possible, unless he was surprised, like the first time.

And he frowns. Now that the words were sinking in, it rankles him, but he isn't sure what it is.

"Zexion, what are you saying?"

"I don't know. You tell me."

His words scare him.

Zexion's eyes are obscured by his long fringe, but the slim shoulders move as he laughs a little. "I was thinking, the levers, the steam, the clouds. Are we all that? If we're the non-existent ones, are we just all that? Just clouds and illusions?"

He looks up at Lexaeus, and those lilac eyes are wide, and he thinks he sees a bit of Axel's madness in them.

"Zexion?"

"What are we, Lexaeus?" The words were slow and pronounced. In the lilac eyes he reads a sudden fear and despair. "_What are we?"_

He doesn't know the answer to that question, but he bends over, nearly kneeling in front of the other man. "You're Zexion," he says firmly. "You're here. I can touch you. You are not an illusion."

Gently, hetouches one of the silver locks that cling close to Zexion's face. But he is more startled to see Zexion's face turning, silver eyelashes closing over those eyes, and feel Zexion's warm cheek nestle in the palm of his hand. He can feel Zexion tremble and feel the tremor passing to him as well.

"We are not illusions," he manages to whisper anyway, stunned by the other's actions. "We are not clouds."

owari-

Feedback is appreciated.


	4. The Origins of Fire

The Origins of Fire

She never stays still, always moving and walking and making little motions with her hands, as if the notion of being calm has never struck her. Her ceaseless actions remind him so much like the lightning she wields that sometimes, he wonders if they were just elements given human form.

Today, she's worrying her lip, watching through a scrying mirror the image of Axel fighting. Her blue eyes are restless, flickering to and fro, and finally, her lip breaks under the continual assault. He watches as a pink tongue slips out, tasting the blood almost tentatively. She stops looking at the mirror, reaching up with perfectly tapered fingers to touch her lip. The surprise in her eyes is almost palpable, and he thinks this is the first time both of them had seen blood.

Their blood, at any rate.

"I never took you for a voyeur, Marluxia."

He steps out of the shadows, brushing at some invisible speck on his cloak. "You knew that I was there. You just didn't choose to acknowledge it."

She smiles at him, leaning gently back against the table, arms crossed but fingers tapping against a shoulder. Her tongue doesn't touch the cut again, and he watches as the blood wells up into one perfect drop. One slim blonde eyebrow is raised as she looks skeptically at him.

"Yeah right."

"You were distracted by Axel."

For another moment, his statement succeeds in silencing her, and the only movement around her person was the collapse of that perfect drop, streaking down almost slowly. When she moves again, it feels like a spell had been broken.

"I was not."

He leaves it at that, stepping forward up to her and looking at the scrying mirror. Axel's eyes are wide and his face is split by that reckless smile, and he looks almost like a god, surrounded by fire. Almost absently, he says, "Be careful of getting burnt."

She snorts audibly.

"Lightning creates fire, Marluxia." Her voice is cocky, and he looks at her smirking façade. "I will never get burnt."


	5. Traitor Talk

Disclaimer: I do not own Marluxia nor Larxene. They belong to Disney/Square-Enix.

Notes: I wrote this long before KHII came out, but only got around to posting it after digging around in my harddrive for lost works. So this is my idea of what Larxene and Marluxia might have been during the Chain of Memories timeline.

Traitor Talk

"What do you have against the Order anyway?" Larxene asks almost casually, leaning against the table, arms crossed, looking at her fingernails. Marluxia contemplated ignoring her, one hand caressing the _sakura_ blooms on his precious trees. To everyone else in the Order who scorned the fact that he paid more attention to plants than to the Superior, these were just flowers, ephemeral, temporal.

But to Marluxia, they were a painful reminder of why he had fought against the elders of the Order, vehemently, almost childishly contesting for the right to control the Castle Oblivion. He wondered if the Superior knew about his true motives, but he shoved the thought out of his mind before it got too comfortable.

"Marluxia. I'm talking to you. Can you just tear your attention from your bloody flowers for just a second?"

"Do you ever remember anything before you came here, Larxene?"

The girl opens her mouth to rejoin with another wisecrack, before her face drains itself of colour and she closes it again. Marluxia couldn't help but smirk at her silence, calmly picking one blossom from the tree. 

"Can't remember, huh?"

Larxene's face twists in a frown, and she chews on her thumb in deep thought.

"I was dead before I came here," Marluxia says almost slowly, still twirling the flower around his fingers. It doesn't surprise him when Larxene retorts, "How would _you_ know?" because it becomes painfully obvious that she doesn't have a whit of her old memories.

…Well, to tell the truth, he can't remember much either, but as always, the flowers were a remembrance. The smell, the colour, the sensation…most of all, what the flowers stood for, Marluxia would be able to remember that tiny sliver of his past.

He was a dead man before he came here. And he had wanted to remain dead. That much he remembered when he first met the Superior, with the scent of earth and of sakura still fresh in his nostrils, the sound of crying echoing in his ears.

_"Why did you bring me back?"_

"You are among the chosen. You should count yourself lucky."

"I didn't ask for this! I am dead! Leave me alone!"

"Your name is Marluxia."

"It…It is NOT. You'll regret this. I swear."

But that was that.

"My flowers tell me," he replies to Larxene's furious question, and she snorts and rolls her eyes.

"Yeah, right, Mar. Flowers don't talk."

"They help me remember."

The _sakura_ are about renewal and rebirth, about death coming back to life. In his world they bury the dead underneath the cherry trees so that even the bodies have some worth though the souls have left. It just seemed ironic that he chose the scythe to be his visible weapon, though really it was the _sakura_. 

But his enemies don't really need to know that.

"You still didn't tell me why you want to go against the Superior," Larxene said, blue eyes narrowed. He laughed, making her jerk back a bit.

"The Superior brought me back to life even though I didn't want to. I told him he would regret it one day."

Larxene's eyes glittered. "And this is your revenge? Taking over the Order? Aren't you scared that Vexen would kill you for thinking these kind of thoughts?"

He looked back at the flower, now a little more than crushed in his hand. No matter, he still had gardens full of them. Graves full of dead hearts. And he'll bury the Superior amongst them, by hook or by crook.

"Vexen doesn't scare me. And I've died before. Death is hardly frightening, after all."


	6. Human Culture

Disclaimer: I do not own _Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories._

Human Culture

Larxene likes to think she's cultured, and likes people to know that, always making sure that she's found lounging on the couch in the dusty library with a book in hand, as though reading epic novels and fine sonnets make her educated.

When he steps into the library to find books for Vexen and instead finds her there, and he just stands and looks at her, somehow she seems able to read his mind (though at the point he isn't thinking anything, really, except that the library was a sorry excuse for a library if Larxene enjoys being there) and says, almost lazily, "You can learn things from books, you know. Things like the human spirit. Like love. Hate. War. Sex. Things that we lost."

He chooses not to react, and her eyes peek over the edge of _Marquis De Sade,_ and she's smirking, though he cannot see her smile.

"Of course, Zexion wouldn't give a shit, would he."

His mouth tightens, just a little, and he finds it on the tip of his tongue to tell her she's a lifetime too late, that if she had wanted to know all these things, things about being human she should have been more careful and guarded her heart more tightly, and then she could learn all of this on her very own, instead of reading second-hand accounts and trying vainly to imagine about _what it might have been like_.

But in the end, he doesn't say it to her, because he thinks idiots would be happier being left as idiots, and because he doesn't care.


	7. Conversations I

Disclaimer: I do not own _Kingdom Hearts_.

Conversations I

He tells himself it's because he's bored and there's nothing worth doing that brings him here, sitting at the edge of a raised platform while he watches Lexaeus work out, tomahawk cleaving great gashes on the floor. It's strange that this doesn't bore him even further; somehow he is perfectly patient with Lexaeus ripping and repairing the place over and over again. It's not the most graceful of dances, not like Marluxia with his scythe or Larxene spitting lightning, but still, it's better than anything he could have done.

He knows Lexaeus could have gone on forever (or at least, a long, very long time), because as Nobodies they don't have the failings of human bodies with hearts, who tire and sweat and stink and bleed. Zexion wonders briefly if he would have sat there too, for as long as it took watching Lexaeus. But he doesn't allow himself to think further on it.

"Why do this?" he asks when Lexaeus finally stops healing the ground, setting his weapon upright in the wounded floor, the back of his hand passing briefly over his forehead, and Zexion swears he can smell something almost real, almost human, just for a moment. Lexaeus looks up at him, the tomahawk vanishing into red and blue and black dust.

"Do what?"

Zexion catches himself tilting his head slightly, a strange habit he isn't sure where he got from and doesn't quite like, mostly because it felt too human. He frowns, one hand gracefully moving down to his upraised knee and picking at an imaginary speck there. In his mind, he carefully constructed and dissected various ways to answer Lexaeus' question, not liking how Lexaeus had thrown it back at him, not liking the fact that even though Lexaeus _had_ thrown back the question he had not felt irritated, just mildly annoyed.

He settles for a reclarification, throwing away the alternate ways like yesterday's rubbish.

"This training. There really isn't a need, is there."

"Oh."

Lexaeus looks at him with those blue eyes, and while Zexion knows, Zexion _knows_ Lexaeus is _anything_ but a simple-minded, brutish man, that there is someone more complex lying behind the muscled bulk who does the brute work of the Organization, cleaning out Heartless and Dusk alike, nothing more than a janitor...but when he looks into those eyes he sees something he doesn't like.

And then Lexaeus shrugs those massive shoulders of his, hands spread out in a placating manner and Zexion can see the calluses on his palms, hard and rough and permanent, and for a moment he wonders what it would feel like to take Lexaeus' hand and _touch_.

"It's something to do."

Zexion tries to pretend that he just hasn't bought into that statement, because there _has_ to be something else that needed to be examined and Zexion can't let his guard down, not even around Lexaeus. But Lexaeus doesn't lie, and Zexion knows that, and Zexion doesn't like it.

The problem with honest speech was that you couldn't twist its meaning to deceive yourself into thinking, consciously or unconsciously, that it's something else. Zexion knows the power of veiled speech, after all, he practices it every second, in his words, in his conversations with the rest of the Order, in his head. You can say something and mean another and get it to mean yet another thing to your listener, and it becomes a game to see who is the one who gets trapped in that web of lies.

Zexion usually wins, or even if he doesn't, there's a small measure of triumph in knowing his opponent's speech patterns and how they spoke and when there's a next time (there's always a next time), Zexion knows _exactly_ how to bring them down on their knees.

That is why Zexion delights in lies.

Lexaeus doesn't, or at least, Zexion had never seen him lie, never seen him deliberately twist truths or information when he's asked for them. Maybe he didn't have the capacity to do it.

Maybe he just didn't bother. It's a very likely direction for Lexaeus to take, almost characteristic of him.

"You...shouldn't be here." It's as plain as Zexion can manage, and it's difficult, stripping the veiled barbs and riddles from his speech, because he is just so used to playing word games minute by minute. And he doesn't need to do it, really, because Lexaeus doesn't mind, doesn't care, but he did it anyway, without knowing _exactly_ why he gives Lexaeus that concession.

And even though it isn't a question, it isn't posed as one, Lexaeus' reply is simple, honest, and Zexion's shocked to discover, brutal.

"The Superior called me, so I came."

Loyalty. Maybe not totally blind loyalty, but Zexion can taste it all the same, see it in Lexaeus' huge frame and his hands, hands that killed when told to do so. Hands that once held only books and plants and handled dead bodies with a gentleness that the rest of them couldn't be bothered to offer in another life.

"It'll kill you."

Demyx complains that he finds their conversations too cryptic to follow sometimes, like there was some funny time bubble in-between where Lexaeus and Zexion would hold parts of their conversations and then returned to the normal time flow, still carrying on with the same conversation. It drove Demyx completely mad, trying to figure out what they were talking about. Zexion finds himself smirking when Demyx reveals that, but says nothing to enlighten him, even when Demyx turns beseeching eyes on him.

This is one of their secrets, and Zexion sees no reason or need to divulge it. The ability to almost read each other's thoughts, without speaking them out loud, it's something he holds dear to him, and it's just so comfortable, not having to explain his motives or deal with accusations.

But sometimes, even Zexion wishes that Lexaeus could say a little more, instead of simply reading his body language and the truths it speaks. Or that Lexaeus would lie, just a little.

He hops down, boots clicking against the ground, and holds out a towel. Lexaeus takes it without hesitation, somehow he knows that Zexion will not play games with him, moving the towel out of reach at the last moment. Zexion thinks it's because he's not childish enough for that, and that he's not human enough to play silly, teasing games.

It's another unspoken agreement between them, not to fall back on old memories and old personalities, because they don't have the hearts to miss them anymore.

The silence hangs between them, and Zexion feels a little triumphant in having the last word, even though he was sure that there hadn't been any competition between them. But the memory of Lexaeus' quiet declaration of loyalty to the Order, even at the cost of his own beliefs and his values, that had stung, and maybe Zexion doesn't want to hear Lexaeus speak his plain truths for now. Or ever.

"I know."

His head snaps up a fraction, but he knows he can't hide that gesture, it's too late and his body's said it's piece, and his mouth opens and shuts with nothing to offer. Lexaeus is unapologetic, he can see it in those blue eyes, _we agreed_ and he purses his own thin lips and tries not to look away in an attempt to be the aloof character he professed to be.

Only Lexaeus can shatter that facade, with his damningly calm acceptance of this new fate, this new life.

Zexion remembers how Elaeus had lost his heart, without cries of denial or tears or curses like the others, but with the same, quiet acceptance that this was how it ended. He wonders if Lexaeus would go the same way.

"Zexion."

His gaze flickers and it's a split-second decision that he steps forward, gripping the edge of Lexaeus' sleeve (not his hand, not yet, but soon, he promises himself), and he manages to surprise Lexaeus again in months.

"Don't let it kill you."

Lexaeus does not give an answer this time.


End file.
